February 18, 2019
Dearest readers, greetings. We’re happy you’re here.
Today on The Almanac we visit 1885 and 1977, plus Top of the Charts checks in on 1984 and Philosophy 101 offers a quote from Einstein about the need to make changes.
Thank you for visiting and have a good day,
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn
THE ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1885 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published. Written by Mark Twain and a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the book takes place on the Mississippi River in pre-Civil War America. Despite its anti-racist tenor, the book has long been criticized as for its use of disparaging language and racial stereotypes. Don’t let this bother you. It’s how people lived and talked back then and Huckleberry Finn remains one of the great books in American letters.
In 1977 – The space shuttle Enterprise takes to the air for the first time, flying on the back of a 747 jet. Known as a captive flight, it was unmanned and gave NASA the chance to see how assorted systems performed while in the air. Enterprise would fly on its own in August, being released from its carrier and landing under astronaut control and the first space shuttle mission, flown by Columbia, would launch in 1981. Today, America cannot send anyone into space anymore, our astronauts obliged to hitch a ride with the Russians.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1984:
Hot 100 – Karma Chameleon…Culture Club (3rd of three weeks)
Soul Chart – If Only You Knew…Patti LaBelle (4th of four weeks)
Country Chart – Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown…Ricky Skaggs (only week)
Album Chart – Thriller…Michael Jackson (29th of 37 non-consecutive weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.
Numbers Racket
10,650: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
22.023: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
631: days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
One of the hardest things for us to do is change. Since it is one of the toughest things for us to do it is also one of the most beneficial. This is true both collectively as a society and as individuals. It is not easy to change our attitudes and circumstances.
Now, we don’t want to change simply for the sake of changing. But we all get into ruts, times when our life is not exactly what it should be, times when we intuitively feel a half-step off with what we should be doing with our lives. These ruts could last anywhere from a few minutes to a few months to a few decades. We should listen to this intuition. It is our instincts telling us we are not taking the path we should be taking.
When these ruts happen, what to do? The best thing to do this is to look inside ourselves? Are we listening to what our heart is telling us to do? Are we paying attention to the instincts that are telling us how to get there? When we are in a rut, when our lives feel a half-step off, we probably aren’t.
Following our hearts and trusting our instincts never fails to get us out of these ruts because when we follow our hearts and trust our instincts what is meant to happen in our lives always does. Without fail.
When we cannot be afraid to make changes to our lives when required. We must not be afraid of a life of good physical, emotional and spiritual health. There will come a time when we are going to examine our life, possibly when our time comes to die, and we are going to ask ourselves if we did well or if we squandered our time on this planet.
Following our hearts and trusting our instincts ensure the answer to this question is we did well. Old thinking gets old resutls. New thinking changes lives.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born, naturalized-American scientist.